Yesterday, some 10,000 Mumbai residents turned out to mourn the dead from last week’s terrorist attacks and to demand more responsiveness from India’s political leaders

Yesterday in Mumbai, India, where last week’s terrorist attacks at famous hotels and a railway station that killed more than 170 people took place, some 10,000 protesters turned out to mourn the dead – and to express their anger about politicians who, they felt, did not respond effectively to the violence. Well-known Indian movie stars and athletes took part in the demonstration, which had been organized by means of mobile-phone text messages and the Facebook website.

The protest was “the biggest outpouring of public anger and frustration since [last] Wednesday’s attacks by Islamist militants….” Participants, “many holding candles and flowers, marched from all over Mumbai and congregated at the Gateway of India, close to the Taj Mahal Hotel, [the] scene of a 60-hour siege….Holding placards and banners condemning terrorism, the emotionally charged crowd raised slogans against Pakistan and Indian politicians.” One man told Reuters: “You can see how angry people are and how hurt everyone is….The politicians must act, they must stop taking us for granted.” The crowd shouted: “Down, down Pakistan[;] attack Pakistan….Hail India[;] shame, shame politicians.” (Reuters)

In Mumbai, police commandos have been patrolling the railway station where passers-by were shot last week

A commentary in the Times of India (“They have failed us”), penned by public-affairs analyst Rajiv Desai, observes: “Politicians and bureaucrats and their cohorts try to operate a modern nation-state with command and control techniques more suited to the colonial era. This contradiction was outlined in stark relief by the terrorist strikes in Mumbai. Not even the most modern nation-state could have anticipated the strikes. However, the key is the response….It took nearly 10 hours for commandos to show up. Plus, the police proved once again unable to do the simplest job of sanitizing the area. Instead, you had crowds of curious onlookers and the inevitable television crews and reporters. What’s more, television reporters, in their eagerness for ‘breaking news,’ were oblivious of the negative impact that their coverage could have, especially in keeping the terrorists informed about the commandos’ tactics…. It was clear that no one was in charge….It was a comprehensive failure of governance.”

The Bush-Cheney gang sent its hapless secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to New Delhi to express solidarity with India, but as the representative of one of the most corrupt, criminal, failed administrations in U.S. history, her words fell sort of flat when she uttered: “What has to happen is there has to be a real sense of transparency, real sense of action and real sense of urgency because these are extremists who have the same intention and same goal and that is to terrorize and send a message to states around the world….” (Financial Times)

Outside the Taj Mahal Hotel, one of the main sites of last week’s terrorist violence in Mumbai, protester-mourners lit candles in memory of those who were killed

Rice traveled on to Pakistan, where she met with Pakistani President Asif Zardari today. He assured her “that Pakistan will assist in [an] investigation into last week’s Mumbai attacks, according to a statement from the Pakistani president’s office.” That statement indicated: “The government will also take strong action against any Pakistani elements found involved in the attack….Pakistan is determined to ensure that its territory is not used for any act of terrorism….” (Xinhua)

Bronwen Maddox, the chief foreign-affairs commentator for Britain’s Times, explains that Rice’s appearance in India “was a sign of the Bush administration’s determined courtship of India. [Her] attentions, in the last six weeks of her job, may have helped to cool tempers. But it wasn’t going to be a very useful visit. It highlights the uncomfortable choices…the Bush administration has made in its relations with India….”

Most notably, Maddox notes, the Bush-Cheney gang cut a special, nuclear-cooperation deal with India, “lean[ing] over backward” to help the Asian economic giant but at the same time “demanding few concessions.” The result “was to compromise the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty by seeming to reward India despite its refusal to join, and despite its development of nuclear weapons. Even more uncomfortably[,] the Bush administration leaned on members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to treat India as a special case deserving access to nuclear technology.” Maddox points out that the American government’s “position has been that India is an exception that brooks no comparison with Iran, North Korea and other proliferation threats. But [U.S. President-elect Barack] Obama has already said that the first problems facing Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state [will] include North Korea and Iran” and that the long-simmering dispute between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir region “deserves ‘serious diplomatic resources’….” However, India regards the Kashmir problem “as a purely bilateral dispute” and “has always resisted such an approach.” Thus, “India is right to call for U.S. pressure on Pakistan to establish…terrorists’ links [to last week's Mumbai attacks]. But it would be wrong [for India] to ask for exceptions to continue to be made in areas that could benefit from impartial U.S. attention.” How much will the Bush-Cheney gang’s favoritism with regard to India affect the willingness of Pakistani authorities to cooperate in the suppression of Pakistan-based terrorists?

Mumbai: Standing in front of an orthographically challenged banner, an Indian Muslim spoke during a condolence meeting of Muslims in honor of those killed in the attacks

The New York Times reports a that former U.S. Defense Department official said yesterday “that American intelligence agencies had determined that former officers from Pakistan’s Army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped train the Mumbai attackers. But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that no specific links had been uncovered yet between the terrorists and the Pakistani government.”

An interesting analysis of unfolding geopolitical dynamics appears in a report by the Hindu‘s Moscow-based reporter-commentator on the visit Russian President Dmitri Medvdev is making to India; he is scheduled to arrive there today. Correspondent Vladimir Radyuhin notes that Medvedev “will be the first world leader to travel to India after the Mumbai tragedy,” and that he has proposed to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that they should focus their discussions “on the rising terrorist threat and concerted efforts to counter it.” Radyuhin adds: “The summit is an opportunity for India and Russia to jointly promote a global strategy for combating terrorism that would be free from double standards and self-serving interests, and would unite the world rather than divide it. Russia sees the attack on India’s financial center in the wider context of a geopolitical shift of power from the West to the East accelerated by the global financial crisis.”

Reuters reports that, for many years, “Islamist militants have bombed Indian cities, killing thousands of people, but public outrage has died down within days of every attack.” Now, though, after last week’s Mumbai events, the public attitude appears to have changed. The head of a social-sciences research institute in India told the news service: “The latest attacks affected some of the richest sections of the population, and since they have greater access to power and the media, their voices are being amplified….” Their anger, along with that of poorer Indians, “will exert pressure on the government to clear up the mess.” Reuters notes that, in India, text messages “ridiculing politicians” have been “circulating fast.” One message that’s making the rounds advises: “Don’t worry about terrorists coming by boat[;] they will end up dead. Worry more about those who come by your vote.”